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Post by Tamrin on Dec 8, 2013 6:46:04 GMT 10
A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time
I love the idea of there being two sexes, don't you?
The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people — that is, people every- where, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature
It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers
There are two kinds of light — the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscuresJames ThurberAmerican cartoonist and humorist (Born this day 1894) All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 8, 2013 6:46:45 GMT 10
Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded
When a man's knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has the greater will be his confusion
No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy
The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have been wrong must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong
What a cage is to the wild beast, law is to the selfish man
How often misused words generate misleading thoughts
We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudicedHerbert Spencer, British engineer and philosopher (Died this day 1903) Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 8, 2013 6:48:16 GMT 10
Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted
I go to temple a lot less than I would like because when I do, people still look at me as if they think it's a publicity stunt
Fame comes with its own standard. A guy who twitches his lips is just another guy with a lip twitch — unless he's Humphrey Bogart
Bogart could have been color blind. He got to know a man before he decided if he liked him or not
Most orgies that you go to, I have found, most of it is sad. All that wildness, all those laughs were like the shining silver and gold paper on packages, but there was nothing inside
I'd learned a lot in the Army. I knew that above all things in the world I had to become so big, so strong that people and their hatred could never touch me
The ultimate mystery is one's own selfSammy Davis, Jr, American entertainer (Born this day 1925) Talk about handicap — I'm a one-eyed Negro Jew
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 8, 2013 6:48:54 GMT 10
I like people who shake other people up and make them feel uncomfortable
If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel
Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you
Blake said that the body was the soul's prison unless the five senses are fully developed and open. He considered the senses the 'windows of the soul.' When sex involves all the senses intensely, it can be like a mystical experience
Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free
The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask
There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doorsJim Morrison, American musician (Doors) (Born this day 1943) The time to hesitate is through
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 8, 2013 6:50:48 GMT 10
If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here-and by 'we' I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp
Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it is amazing how little time we take to remark upon this sing- ular and gratifying fact. By the most astounding stroke of luck an infinitesimal por- tion of all the matter in the universe came together to create you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist
It is natural human impulse to think of evolution as a long chain of improvements, of a never-ending advance towards largeness and complexity — in a word, towards us. We flatter ourselves. Most of the real diversity in evolution has been small-scale. We large things are just flukes — an interesting side branch
We are so used to the notion of our own inevitability as life's dominant species that it is hard to grasp that we are here only because of timely extra-terrestrial bangs and other random flukes. The one thing we have in common with all other living things is that for nearly four billions years our ancestors have man- aged to slip through a series of closing doors every time we needed them to
It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of the intoxicating existence we've been en- dowed with. But what's life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours-arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don't. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, en- dure any insult, for a moment's additions existence. Life, in short just wants to be
Our instinct may be to see the impossibility of tracking everything down as frustrating, dispiriting, perhaps even appalling, but it can just as well be viewed as almost unbearably exciting. We live on a planet that has a more or less infinite capacity to surprise. What reasoning person could possibly want it any other way?
The upshot of all this is that we live in a universe whose age we can't quite compute, surrounded by stars whose distances we don't altogether know, filled with matter we can't identify, operating in conformance with physical laws whose properties we don’t truly understandBill Bryson, OBEUS-UK humourist ( A Short History of Nearly Everything) (Born this day 1951) The people are immensely likable — cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted, and unfailingly obliging. Their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water. They have a society that is prosperous, well ordered, and instinctively egalitarian. The food is excellent. The beer is cold. The sun nearly always shines. There is coffee on every corner. Life doesn't get much better than this(“In a Sunburned Country” aka Australia)
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 8, 2013 6:51:28 GMT 10
1 of 2:Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one
If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace
Possession isn't nine-tenths of the law. It's nine-tenths of the problem
A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality
It doesn't matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I'm a woman or a man
Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me
All we are saying is give peace a chanceJohn Lennon, British musician (Beatles) (Murdered this day 1980) You have to do it yourself. That's what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshipped for the cover of the book and not for what it says, but the instructions are all there for all to see, have always been and always will be. There's nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can't wake you up. You can wake you up. I can't cure you. You can cure you
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 8, 2013 22:23:16 GMT 10
2 of 2:Woman is the Nigger of the World
Woman is the nigger of the world Yes she is...think about it Woman is the nigger of the world Think about it...do something about it
We make her paint her face and dance If she won't be a slave, we say that she don't love us If she's real, we say she's trying to be a man While putting her down, we pretend that she's above us
Woman is the nigger of the world...yes she is If you don't believe me, take a look at the one you're with Woman is the slave of the slaves Ah, yeah...better scream about it
We make her bear and raise our children And then we leave her flat for being a fat old mother hen We tell her home is the only place she should be Then we complain that she's too unworldly to be our friend
Woman is the nigger of the world...yes she is If you don't believe me, take a look at the one you're with Woman is the slave to the slaves Yeah...alright...hit it!
We insult her every day on TV And wonder why she has no guts or confidence When she's young we kill her will to be free While telling her not to be so smart we put her down for being so dumb
Woman is the nigger of the world Yes she is...if you don't believe me, take a look at the one you're with Woman is the slave to the slaves Yes she is...if you believe me, you better scream about it
John Lennon (Died this day 1980)
If you define "niggers" as someone whose lifestyle is defined by others, whose opportunities are defined by others, whose role in society are defined by others, then Good News! You don't have to be black to be a "nigger" in this society. Most of the people in America are "niggers"
Ron Dellums
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 9, 2013 6:18:47 GMT 10
Quotes for the Day:To give pleasure to a single heart by a single kind act is better than a thousand head-bowings in prayer
Kings need the company of the intelligent far more than the intelligent need the society of kings
A scholar without diligence is a lover without money; a traveler without knowledge is a bird without wings; a theorist without practice is a tree without fruit; and a devotee without learning is a house without an entrance
Whoever acquires knowledge and does not practice it resembles him who plows his land and leaves it unsown
He can see no good who will associate with the wicked. Were an angel from heaven to associate with a demon, he would learn his brutality, perfidy, and hypocrisy. Virtue thou never canst learn of the vicious; it is not the wolf's occupation to mend skins, but to tear them
The sinner who spends and gives away is better than the devotee who begs and saves his money
Whoever interrupts the conversation of others to make a display of his fund of knowledge, makes notorious his own stock of ignoranceSa'di, Persian poet ( Orchard, Rose Garden) (Died this day 1291) Human beings are members of a whole, in creation of one essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain, other members uneasy will remain. If you have no sympathy for human pain, the name of human you cannot retain
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 9, 2013 6:20:02 GMT 10
Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her birth
A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy
He who reigns within himself and rules passions, desires, and fears is more than a king
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties
None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but licence
When complaints are freely heard, deeply considered and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for
The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of HeavenJohn Milton, English poet and puritan (Born this day 1608) On the Late Massacre in Piedmont[Waldensians] Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold, Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones; Forget not: in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To Heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O'er all th' Italian fields where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundredfold, who having learnt thy way Early may fly the Babylonian woe.
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 9, 2013 6:21:13 GMT 10
All belongs to all. All things are for all men ... All is for all!
We already know much! What if that knowledge — and only that — should become the possession of all? Would not science itself progress in leaps, and cause mankind to make strides in production, invention, and social creation, of which we are hardly in a condition now to measure the speed?
Man is appealed to to be guided in his acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at the best tribal, but by the perception of his oneness with each human being. In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support not mutual struggle — has had the leading part
Governmental Communism, like theocratic Communism, is repugnant to the worker
Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle
What we proclaim is The Right to Well-Being: Well-Being for All!
When we have but the will to do it, that very moment will Justice be done
Peter Kropotkin (born a prince but renounced the title) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, scientist, revolutionary, philologist, economist, activist, geographer, writer, and anarchistic social philosopher (Fields, Factories and Workshops & Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution) (Born this day 1842)
Idlers do not make history: they suffer it!
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